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MARK L. BAKKE'S
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REPLY #17 TO
"EVOLUTION VS. CREATIONISM"
Boldfaced statements are parts of the original essay (or a subsequent reply) to which the respondent has directed his comments.
 Italicized/emphasized comments prefaced by (R) are those of the respondent and are presented unedited. My replies appear under the respondent's comments in blue text and are prefaced by my initials (MB). (R) OK., the population figures work for evolution as well. Notice I said, "as well" since you have to admit that it fits into the creation framework and at a different level evolution's framework also. (MB) Why must I have to admit such nonsense? If you read the refutation presented in my previous response, you'll see that if we accept the Biblical story of Noah, the total world population today would be only approximately 1740 people. Since this is clearly not the case, how do the population figures support any creationism model? (R) I'm not exactly sure when you think germs came into being, but I'm assuming you believe they have been here longer than 6,000 years. If the germ population would be going "through the roof" in 6,000 years, how many would there be if they lived longer? As I'm assuming you suppose. (MB) One might just as well ask how many humans there would be if we all lived for 10,000 years. Since this is not the case, there is no point in hypothesizing about the consequences. That's another reason why population calculations refer to birth rates and death rates instead of the average lifetime of a species. (R) I don't know about the pyramids having signs of erosion, but I know of something within its vicinity that does. The Great Sphynx. It is very noticeable that the sphynx's body has been eroded by water. (MB) Should that be a surprise? The Sphinx was carved whole out of a large block of native rock and is approximately 4600 years old. It ought to have rained more than a few times over that many years -- not to mention the recent effects of air pollution that have the Egyptians worried today. (R) The head is not eroded though. (MB) Says who? (R) I, and many other Creation scientist, believe that the head was reconstructed sometime after the flood. (MB) "Creation scientist"? Isn't that a rather large oxymoron considering Creationism's total disdain for the methods and findings of science? In any case, what evidence is there of any such reconstruction? The head certainly couldn't have been removed and replaced. (R) As a matter of fact there was a Creation scientist who took a picture of the Sphynx's body that left out the head. Well, he showed this picture to an evolution scientist and asked him what type of weathering patterns the rock in the picture showed. He confidently told the Creation Scientist that it showed erosion by water. When the Creation scientist showed him the complete picture of the Sphynx, the evolutionist then contridicted what he himself had said and told him another story. (MB) So, this unnamed Creation "scientist" showed an edited photograph to an unidentified evolution scientist to gain an opinion about a process that would better have been described by a geologist conducting a first hand inspection? Are we to assume that this unnamed individual had never before seen the Sphinx or was the photograph one that was taken in such a way that the object itself would have been unidentifiable? Also, any photograph that showed the complete Sphinx would be unlikely to be detailed enough to show enough erosion evidence to support a competent conclusion -- especially by somebody who is not an expert in the field. Finally, why wasn't the first photograph identified as being of the Sphinx when it was shown? Did the Creation "scientist" have some reason for obscuring his motives? (R) Your only other alternative for water erosion is the Nile. Obviously this couldn't be the case since water can't "stand" on sand. It would sink very rapidly. (MB) The erosion of the Sphinx is vertical in nature -- as would be caused by falling rain. Erosion caused by rising or flowing water would be horizontal and show evidence of wave patterns. There is no way to confuse the two and there are no wave patterns found on the Sphinx. Also, water can stand on sand if the water table is high enough or if the sand is compact enough. If this couldn't happen, there would be no such thing as an oasis in the desert. (R) Just to tell you people in ancient times used to have much more children in one family than they do today. Look at Joseph and his family from the bible, (his father was Jesse) he had 11 siblings. It was common for the time to have, by today's standards, many children. (MB) Families had more children since the death rate was much higher and lifespans were much shorter. High birth rates coupled with high death rates produces little or no net change in the overall population. Also, in the case of many Biblical stories, the many "children" of these families often are eponyms for various tribes rather than actual individuals. (R) And obviously during the middle ages you wouldn't expect to have a good mortality rate. They weren't very sanitary and sickness was rampant during those times time to name a couple. (MB) That's why you must understand that high death rates offset high birth rates and why you can't take the population growth rates of modern times and extrapolate from them backwards throughout human history. (R) Oh, and heading back to the Flood, did you know that the history of the Flood has been carried by 300 different tribes and nations. (MB) Flood stories were very popular in those days. However, if you'll examine the various stories, you'll find that they agree on almost nothing. They give different times for their floods, different extents for the catastrophe, different events surrounding it, different stories for the hero(es) of the tales, different methods of escape, etc. Since people of those days were nomadic, it should come as little surprise that good stories were spread from tribe to tribe and that the best would be embellished and modified to fit the group who retold them. For example, the story of Noah was derived from the earlier Gilgamesh epic of neighboring Sumeria. (R) But, as you believe, it didn't happen! (MB) That's right. There are so many reasons why a world-destroying Noachian Flood is impossible that no thinking person could possibly believe that it actually did (or could) happen. (R) When you said we could look back in time and you referred to the star light, that is completely different than looking back in time to "prove" evolution through rock dates. (MB) How? Both cases use direct physical evidence to bring us knowledge of events that happened long ago. (R) As far as I'm concerned you "prove" evolution through circular reasoning. (MB) As far as reality is concerned, this is not the case. Read on... (R) Fossils were dated well before you came up with radiometric dating. (MB) Not correct. The consistent ordering of fossils in matching layers of strata is easily established without radiometric dating, but no reliable ages for them could be established. (R) This is what you do: You have pre-set, pre-dated fossils, (which are only assumptions of when you think the animals evolved so that it could fit your theory ) than you date the fossils by the rocks of which they are in, then you prove evolution by the dates of the rocks. I just went in a 360 deg. circle which is called circular reasoning. Evolutionists are living in a circle! (MB) This old Creationist chestnut has been debunked so many times that they don't even like using it these days. Radiometric dating involves measuring the radioactive decay of one isotope into another. There are several different methods for doing this and none are dependent on any of the others. They are also not dependent on the presence or absence of fossils. Independent methods can be used to cross-check datings of rock samples and they produce results that are in agreement. The methods are solid and trusted. Fossils are dated by identifying the layer of strata which contains them. The same layers always test out to be the same age and the same fossils are always found in the same layers. The only way that the Creationists can now attack the dating of fossils is to postulate that radioactive decay is not a constant. But, such an idea has nothing to support it and would, in any event, require wholesale changes in the fundamental laws of physics. (R) And in a section of your reply you basicly said how evolution scientists are more fixed on evolution then Creationist on creation. (MB) What I took issue with was your statement "I think Darwinists are biased" along with its implicit assumption that Creationists are not. (R) Well, Creationists are trying to be as objective as possible on creation,... (MB) "Objective"? In what way? Or, is this some new connotation of the word "objective"? (R) ...which I admit is not proven as well as evolution isn't proven,... (MB) If neither side is proven, then one must go with the level of evidence supporting them. The data which supports evolution is overwhelming. The data which supports Creationism has yet to be presented. Because of this, logic alone indicates conclusively that evolution is far more likely to be correct than is Creationism. (R) ...while evolutionists have kept much Creation evidence from the public and try to reason everything into their belief... (MB) What "Creation evidence" has been kept from the public by evolutionists? I don't mean wild speculations, bogus mathematics, or other raving lunacies. I'm talking about real, hard, unambiguous and definitive evidence in favor of Creationism. If any such thing existed, the scientist who presented it would become famous -- probably to the level of winning the Nobel Prize. There is absolutely no reason to think that it would be (or could be) suppressed. (R) ...and when something contradicts their theory, they add new theories;... (MB) Do you have an example of something that contradicts evolution and of any new theory that has been "added" to account for it? (R) ...hence, the Oort Cloud. (MB) Yet another rancid old chestnut. OK, this time, the ball's in your court. Let's hear you present and support this argument. Oh, before you do so, let me remind you that comets are not blown apart by the solar wind and that no object as small and dark as an individual comet can be photographed and resolved at the distance of the Oort Cloud. Now, how does that argument go again?
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